Holder: ‘Things Have Gotten a Little Out of Whack’

'I'm not comfortable' branding a reporter as a 'criminal'

Attorney General Eric Holder said he is concerned with methods the Department of Justice has used in monitoring reporters Wednesday during an exclusive interview with NBC News' Pete Williams.

"I think we can do a better job than we have. We can reform those regulations, reform those guidelines to better reflect that balance" between press freedom and safeguarding national secrets, Holder said.

Court documents reveal that the Department of Justice named Fox News' James Rosen a "co-conspirator" against the government. Holder said that the term had to be applied to Rosen in order to obtain a search warrant.

"I don't like that. It means that me, as a government official, who has great respect for the press, is in essence saying that a reporter, who is doing his or her job, and doing that very importnat job, is somehow branded a criminal," Holder said. "We're going to change that."

Holder suggested that practices of obtaining search warrants will be used that could include giving the media more notice and using judges as third party arbiters.